This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doing this because phones made it normal. It's wrong in both cases.
It's similar to when Apple defended it's 30% store cut by claiming it's an "industry standard"... specifically, an industry standard that Apple established.
On the other hand, you can't sideload apps onto iOS devices. You HAVE to go through Apple. You either publish on the app store, or you don't have an iOS app. That's different. That's very different. That's antitrust-can't-happen-sooner different.
> "That's different. That's very different
Is it? Why is it? You can't sell software to run on Kindle Paperwhite even though it's a full computer inside. What's the specific difference between that and iOS, other than "Apple's ecosystem and customers are desirable, so I want to use it" and "I don't want to pay for it"?
You aren't making much sense. You won't have any semblance of adoption if you don't have presence on iOS. Except maybe in India where iOS market share is tiny.
> You can't sell software to run on Kindle Paperwhite even though it's a full computer inside.
It's an appliance. It's marketed as a device to serve one purpose — read books. Amazon isn't making apps for it either, as far as the user is concerned, there's no notion of application software on these things.
By the way, washing machines and microwaves also have a full computer in them — there's CPU, RAM, and ROM. Yes, tiny and underpowered. Probably not quite powerful enough to run Doom. Computers nonetheless, technically.
Yet no one raises any objections about not being able to run arbitrary code on them. Precisely because of the marketing and expectations.
> What's the specific difference between that and iOS
iPhones and iPads are marketed as general-purpose computing devices. They are not appliances by any stretch of imagination. Yet they are crippled because Apple has knowingly and deliberately put in a limitation so they only run code that was signed by Apple. This limits their general-purposefulness. This forces developers who don't want or need the hosting and listing still go through the app store.
This is like a restaurant demanding smart shoes for customers, and you complaining that it's anti-competitively hurting your sneaker business and the restaurant should be forced to change. Customers going there are going there knowing the dress code applies to them and others, forcibly blocking that removes part of their reason for going there at all.
> "You aren't making much sense. You won't have any semblance of adoption if you don't have presence on iOS."
That is the sense, you aren't required to have any semblance of adoption. Apple is successful by building a curated, restricted, "exclusive" (by perception if not fact) experience. You want access to the customers and their money, without upholding the reasons the customers are using that platform.
> "Yet no one raises any objections about not being able to run arbitrary code on them. Precisely because of the marketing and expectations."
Now you aren't making sense. Apple never marketed or set expectations that you could sideload apps on iPhone or iOS, did they?
> "By the way, washing machines and microwaves also have a full computer in them — there's CPU, RAM, and ROM. Yes, tiny and underpowered. Probably not quite powerful enough to run Doom. Computers nonetheless, technically."
So you're going after Bosch for anti-competitively not allowing you to sell software that runs on their washing machines, and not allowing owners to sideload? Because this is all about anti-competitive, you said? No obviously you aren't doing that, which calls into question your claimed reasons. You can easily list your app on Apple's store and compete, what it's about is you want more money. Which is fine in its own way, until you try to get some legal mandate for Apple to force me to worse platform so you can avoid paying Apple money for using Apple's platform and reputation.
If you don't like Bosch, there's hundreds of other manufacturer, if you don't like a restaurant, there's hundreds of other ones you can pick, if you don't like Android and iOS, well, you're screwed.
That's the market analogy, secondly, those monopolies are essential in today's computing world and currently power a great part of the tech industry, easy to see some issues there.
> That argument would be fine if we had plenty of mobile OS providers
So your problem is Apple solved the customer problem so well with “an Apple experience” that all other phone OSes were abandoned.
And as a result Apple should be forced to ruin that experience beloved by their customers, so that the relatively small number of software developers make a little more money?
As an Apple customer, I’m glad your software is being gated from me. I don’t trust your judgement.
I don't really care how and why those two companies got their monopoly, that's beside the point.
> And as a result Apple should be forced to ruin that experience beloved by their customers, so that the relatively small number of software developers make a little more money?
There's hundreds of thousands of developers on mobile platforms and juste two single companies on the other side with blatant anti-trust issues, that's an easy argument here.
> As an Apple customer, I’m glad your software is being gated from me. I don’t trust your judgement.
I really don't care if you use my software or not either. I'm currently forced to use one of those two mobile platform for my daily use and both choices are terrible in their own way due to anti-trust issues. You have absolutely zero power over Apple which owns your device anyway so I'm not sure why you would say that, it's not like your opinion would matter to them.
How do you expect to beat Apple or even an argument on the internet, let alone with Congress, if you’re not even willing to learn from your (so called) competitors?
Apple have 27% of the mobile OS market.
Simple as what? What do you expect, what do you want, anti-trust laws being applied to do? Magically conjour up a competitor from nowhere? Or just smash iOS in resentment for its success so you can have avoid having to suffer Android?
The history of the mobile OS market is beside the point, I'm only stating facts about the current landscape.
> Apple have 27% of the mobile OS market.
And they are in a duopoly with Google with absolutly zero competition. If you want a proof of that, the only time their tariff ever changed was because of Epic Game's threat... of an antitrust lawsuit, you can't even make this stuff up.
> Simple as what? What do you expect, what do you want, anti-trust laws being applied to do? Magically conjour up a competitor from nowhere? Or just smash iOS in resentment for its success so you can have avoid having to suffer Android?
Yes exactly, smash both iOS and Android into multiple independent companies so that this broken market blocking the tech industry can function again.
It's not besides the point, it's important whether there's no competition because Apple crushed them unfairly in an anti-trust kind of way, or because all other competitors are completely and utterly incompetent. That there is a competing OS with many manufacturers customising and selling it and they collectively have the dominant market share by ~2x over Apple says that Apple is not a monopoly. "Duopoly with no competition, except the dozens of companies which outsell them by 2:1" is nonsensical.
> "if you don't like Android and iOS, well, you're screwed" "Yes exactly, smash both iOS and Android into multiple independent companies"
But I do like iOS. And I don't want you smashing iOS because you don't like it. Part of why it's good is because it's made by one integrated company. You already have Android from multiple independent companies - you can have it without Google services, where it's basically functionless, you can have it with Samsung UX or you can try Huaweii's build. Are you saying they're all bad (yes), that they all can't compete to make things better, but if the same happens to iOS that will somehow make it good? Of course it won't, it will make it just as bad in the same ways for the same reasons.
What's wrong with the Pinephone or Librem5 or all the other non-Apple non-Google phones? Why are you "screwed"? They can't compete because making a cutting edge device is hard and expensive.
> "because of Epic Game's threat... of an antitrust lawsuit, you can't even make this stuff up."
I'll check what Wikipedia has on that... "When Epic first released its Android client, it offered it as a sideloaded package rather than as a Google Play store app, as they did not want Google to take any revenue from the microtransactions in the game.[6] However, this resulted in a number of security concerns and numerous unscrupulous clones attempting to pass themselves off as the real Fortnite game in the Google Play store"
Yes, this sounds exactly what I expect, not techno-freedom-utopia but unregulated scamland, and why I'm objecting so hard in this thread. Followed by "Sweeney said that they undertook the actions as "we're fighting for the freedom of people who bought smartphones to install apps from sources of their choosing, the freedom for creators of apps to distribute them as they choose, and the freedom of both groups to do business directly."
That sounds awesome, imagine the freedom to install apps from sources of your choosing, like sideloading ... hang on "and by April 2020, Epic discontinued the sideloaded version and placed the game on the Google Play store". Oh I guess he didn't really believe his own story at all, and wanted to benefit from Google's better reptuation and filtering on the Play store, while arguing that it shouldn't exist?
There's network effects on mobile platforms, you could not make a new one even if you had 500 billion you could spend on it. The existing actors just prevent you to create a new one.
> But I do like iOS. And I don't want you smashing iOS because you don't like it
I don't like monopolies, I couldn't care less about the iOS interface. There's blatant market issues in the tech industry that need to be solved.
> What's wrong with the Pinephone or Librem5 or all the other non-Apple non-Google phones? Why are you "screwed"? They can't compete because making a cutting edge device is hard and expensive.
They have negligible market size and thus do not have an influence on the the mobile app market, that's not even an argument.
> Yes, this sounds exactly what I expect, not techno-freedom-utopia but unregulated scamland
You're missing the point completely, in a market with competition, you are supposed to act and react according to the competition, the only change Apple ever did was because of a real threat of antitrust lawsuit... That's basically admission.
> That sounds awesome, imagine the freedom to install apps from sources of your choosing, like sideloading ... hang on "and by April 2020, Epic discontinued the sideloaded version and placed the game on the Google Play store". Oh I guess he didn't really believe his own story at all, and wanted to benefit from Google's better reptuation and filtering on the Play store, while arguing that it shouldn't exist?
No, that just tells you that even the most popular game in the world could not make it outside the play store. That tells you that Google's claim that "you can sideload anyways" are just complete BS and that's hard proof that the restrictions they've put in place to make that option not suitable are working.
Additionally Google has prevented manufacturers to pre-install the Epic Store by using threats.
First it's network effects, then it's the existing actors preventing you. Make your mind up.
> "I don't like monopolies, I couldn't care less about the iOS interface."
Then use a Pinephone. That nobody else you know uses it, and nobody develops for it isn't Apple's fault. Apple's 30% appstore cut isn't bringing people from Pinephone to iOS, if anything it should be pushing the other way. I know they have negligible market size - the point is Apple iOS has big market size by being good and your plan to respond to this is to make it bad from sour grapes.
> "You're missing the point completely, in a market with competition, you are supposed to act and react according to the competition, the only change Apple ever did was because of a real threat of antitrust lawsuit... That's basically admission."
Fortnite was not competing with Apple though? Epic gave people a way to buy Fortnite on Steam, and then a way to install Fortnite free on Android, and people didn't want that. So Epic came after Apple and blamed them, irrelevantly, and the judge was leaning to Apple's side.
> "No, that just tells you that even the most popular game in the world could not make it outside the play store."
That just tells you that app stores are doing something people really really really want.
> "That tells you that Google's claim that "you can sideload anyways" are just complete BS"
Except you can sideload anyways, as evidenced by the fact that you can. What it tells you is that /people don't want to/.